


Checking In

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Gen, Separations, everybody's doing their part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Caitlin's quarantined at Central City University, working on a team that's plotting the viral genome. But she and Cisco still find ways to stay in touch.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Caitlin Snow
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Checking In

**Author's Note:**

> I just felt like writing something about Team Flash in the middle of *waves hands* all this. If you don’t want to think about that right now, and I don’t blame you, click away.
> 
> Also, cure, what cure? Cisco is 100% in possession of his Vibe powers and happy about it. So there.
> 
> Thanks to Hedgi, who helped me brainstorm different ways Team Flash could help.

Caitlin was almost weaving with exhaustion as she made her way to the dorms. Like every other scientist who had come to work on the genomic mapping project at CCU, she’d been issued a room of her own and meals at the cafeteria. Individually packaged, of course, and with all the flavor and texture of the plastic wrapped around them. 

Tonight was supposed to be meatloaf, with various other options for different diets. She could go without, she decided. She kept a stash of snacks in her room, anyway. If she managed not to face-plant directly onto the squeaky twin bed, she might be able to eat some cheese and crackers. 

But when she pushed open her door, the dingy little cement-block room was filled with the aroma of pasta and marinara sauce.

She gaped for a moment at the take-out container sitting on the desk, then tugged her phone out and swiped it awake, tapping in the first person on her speed dial.

It rang for a moment, then Cisco’s face popped up. “If it isn’t my favorite superhero,” he said, a grin spreading over his face. “Have you caught the villain yet?”

Caitlin managed a smile in return. The virus’s mutations were keeping all of them on their toes, scrambling to map each new variation so they could get accurate tests out. “Working on it,” she said, sinking into the chair. She turned the phone to the takeout box. “Was this you?”

“Who? Me? Must’ve been your fairy godmother.”

She popped the phone up so she could see his face and ripped open the plastic-wrapped utensils. “Well, my fairy godmother knows exactly what my favorite meal from Mario’s is.”

“Would be a sucky fairy godmother if she didn’t.”

She dug in, groaning with pleasure at her first bite of eggplant parmesan. “What are you up to?”

“My ship came in, and by that I mean, my giant-ass order of fabric and elastic.”

“That’s wonderful!” It had been delayed, like so many other things these days. “So you’re working on that?”’

“Yup, got a whole assembly line going in my workroom. Iris and Ralph are my minions. We’ve almost got an entire Rubbermaid tote full of masks and gowns for Central City General. Should be full by tonight, and I can breach it in.”

Ever since the CDC had started recommending masks, he’d been using every scrap of suitable fabric in his workshop to sew them. Before she’d joined the team on the CCU campus, Caitlin’s tests had revealed that his breaches actually disinfected material that got sent through them, so he had taken to breaching into food banks and homeless shelters to drop off his shipments of masks. 

He’d run out of fabric a week ago and had almost cried every time he got an email that his refill order was delayed.

“I’m so glad you got that delivery,” she said now. “I know they need it.”

“Just doing what I can do,” he said. “Hoping it helps. So how are you doing? Are the other kids playing nice? Letting you share their toys?”

“Everyone’s been very kind,” she said. “You know, I wasn’t sure how useful I’d be since my specialty has never been virology - ”

“Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “You’re a crackerjack geneticist and they’re lucky to have you. Just like we’ve been lucky to have you all these years.”

She smiled through the phone at him. He never let her run herself down. “So what is everyone else doing?”

He told her all about how Iris had discovered local farms with food rotting in their storehouses, hamstrung by the interrupted supply chain. Apparently, Barry had spent hours today running loads of potatoes from rural sections of the county into the city’s food banks, which were inundated with people who’d lost their jobs and were struggling to feed their families. 

“The director of Feed Central City is about ready to nominate him for sainthood,” Cisco said. “But he says he never wants to see a french fry ever again." 

"Mmm, how long will that last?”

“I give it a week. That was a lot of potatoes. Tomorrow is tomatoes, though, so he may be off spaghetti, too.”

She giggled and took a bite of her pasta. “And you said Ralph and Iris were helping you with the masks?”

“Yep. Did you know pins don’t stick him?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s that rubber skin of his. He’s doing all the pinning, stabbing himself every other time and not even noticing. Me and my fingertips are so jealous. And Iris is a machine. She did a full-ass phone interview today with the CDC’s Central City office and never once mismeasured. Unbelievable. Are we sure she’s not some kind of meta?”

Caitlin was in the middle of another laugh when her phone beeped. 

“What’s that? Somebody else calling you?”

“My alarm,” she said. “I should get back.”

“I thought you were done for the night.”

She shook her head, closing the lid on the takeout container and stowing it in the tiny fridge in the corner of the room. “This was just my dinner break. I was intending to take a catnap, but this was better, believe me.” With the energy that the warm food and Cisco’s company had given her, she could get as much as four more hours of work done tonight.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll let you get back to saving the world, then.”

“Take care of yourself,” she said.

“That’s a promise.”

It wasn’t glamorous or dramatic, she thought as she set off back across the campus to the lab. Sequencing a genome, sewing masks, researching news stories, ferrying potatoes. It was often dull, sometimes painful, and occasionally felt pointless. None of it was a magic bullet that would fix everything, like the climax in a summer blockbuster.

But it was like Cisco said. In times like these, you did what you could do, and hoped that it helped. 

FINIS


End file.
